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2025-2026 / ANTH0392-1

Visual anthropology and worlds going beyond humans

Duration

30h Th

Number of credits

 Master in anthropology, research focus5 crédits 

Lecturer

N...

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the second semester

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

In this novel course, students will watch, debate and produce visual anthropological work starting from the underlying awareness that our words are always more-than-human (including animals, plants, landscapes, elements, spirits, etc). The course will consist of

  • Screenings of documentaries which focus on communication and relationships with animals and other more-than-human beings
  • Discussion of these films in relation to important aspects of anthropology
  • Practical involvement in the creation of audiovisual material that includes the more-than-human

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

At the end of the teaching unit, students will be able to:

  • Partake in debates typical for the 'species turn' in anthropology and beyond
  • Have a sense of the variety of options for multimodal approaches in multispecies and more-than-human ethnographic research
  • Engage more confidently with visual methods in their own research practice

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

None

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

The course is built on a variety of academic and non-academic documentaries and texts. It is organized as follows:

  • Reading of academic texts
  • Communal watching and debating of these texts and documentaries (sometimes in collaboration with the invited filmmaker)
  • Visual ethnographic exercise
Instead of providing an overview of visual anthropology history or theory, the course aims to provide entry point into important aspects of evolving anthropological and wider social scientific debates, by addressing themes such as objectivity/subjectivity, othering, reflexivity, multispecies approaches, multi-sensuality, other-sensuality, epistemological diversity and the ontological turn. These themes will be discussed based on the documentaries shown and academic literature read.

The visual ethnographic materials will focus on communication and relationship with nature, with a focus on animals from a wide variety of species, as practiced in different societies in the world. Discussions will take place between the students, invited filmmakers, the lecturer and the other team members of the ERC ANICOM project, whose work focuses on and expands more-than-human (visual) ethnographic methods and theories.

The students are invited to optionally participate in a workshop to learn practical visual ethnography skills. Whether they participate in the workshop or not, they will be asked to produce a short visual ethnographic output in combination with an essay on a related theoretical concept.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course


Further information:

Face-to-face course

Additional information: The course is organized as a 3h per week seminar. It will take place during the second term. The active participation of students is expected. Relevant scientific literature will be introduced and made available.

The practical part of the course includes a visual anthropological assignment that can be carried out outside the classroom. This gives students the opportunity to engage directly with the social and sensual worlds of more-than-human others, and express their digestion of theoretical concepts in a multimodal format.

Course materials and recommended or required readings

Platform(s) used for course materials:
- eCampus


Further information:

Documentaries are made available to watch during class. Texts (papers and books) are provided before each session. These may be enriched by other written and multimodal sources.

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- In-person

written exam AND oral exam

Written work / report

Continuous assessment


Further information:

Evaluation depends on the participation in the classroom, the quality of the essay and participation in the production of the visual ethnographic assessment.

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

The course will take place in English.

Contacts

Lecturer

Vanessa Wijngaarden

Faculty of Social Sciences

Place des orateurs, 3, Bât B31

Sart Tilman

4000 Liège

+32 4 3663186

E-Mail: vanessa.wijngaarden@uliege.be

 

Assistant

Cédric Audoan

Faculty of Social Sciences

Place des orateurs, 3, Bât B31

Sart Tilman

4000 Liège

+32 4 3662287

Cedric.Audoan@uliege.be

Association of one or more MOOCs